Can The Fbi Really Change?

June 02, 2002

Give credit to Robert Mueller, director of the FBI, for telling Americans last week that federal investigators might have been able to uncover plotting for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks beforehand had they been more diligent in pursuing leads.

Admitting failure is the first step toward improving performance.

Unsparing self-examination, including questioning of the intelligence agencies and the White House by members of Congress, has been difficult in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. The Bush administration has been especially defensive when questions are raised about what was known prior to Sept. 11. Some administration supporters have branded such criticism as unpatriotic.

Mounting evidence of missed opportunities and lax counter-terrorism measures can't be ignored, however. Lawmakers have a responsibility to investigate. They should not leave the examination of causes and solutions in the exclusive hands of the executive branch.

First there was the so-called Phoenix memo last summer in which an FBI agent told headquarters of his suspicion about Middle Eastern men who were taking flight training at a Phoenix airport. The agent recommended that the FBI check flight schools around the country for suspicious Middle Eastern students. Washington failed to act.

Also, top FBI officials ignored requests by agents in Minneapolis for a search warrant for the computer and personal belongings of flight student Zacarias Moussaoui. He was in jail on immigration charges and is now thought by law enforcement agents to have been the ``20th hijacker'' in September. Mr. Moussaoui, the FBI field office reported, sought training on how to fly but was not interested in learning how to land an aircraft. Coleen Rowley, the FBI's general counsel in Minneapolis, wrote a recent blistering memo accusing top FBI officials of setting up a ``roadblock'' that prevented her office from pursuing suspicions that the French national was a terrorist.

There were other memos. For example, an FBI pilot in Oklahoma City wrote to his supervisor in 1998 that he was suspicious about the ``large numbers'' of Middle Eastern men receiving flight training at area airports. In another report to headquarters, intelligence officials noted that a Middle Eastern nation tried to buy a flight simulator in violation of U.S. restrictions. Again, no action.

Could these dots have been connected and the terrorist plot uncovered in time? Maybe not, but it's possible. Each warning was swallowed up in the bureaucratic fog.

Clearing that fog is a must, but it will be difficult. The FBI, like other secret agencies, is resistant to change.

Last week, Mr. Mueller and his boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, pledged to make fighting terrorism their top priority and shift hundreds of agents from their present duties.

Mr. Mueller and Mr. Ashcroft also proposed a joint task force to coordinate the work of intelligence agencies and to create a central analytical office at the FBI to review data -- such as the memos from Ms. Rowley and the Phoenix agent -- and make connections. That's good, but what took them so long? Cooperation among agencies and centralized analysis of data should have been the modus operandi long ago.

Beyond moving the bureaucratic furniture, Mr. Mueller and his assistant directors must succeed in changing the agency's culture. That may be the hardest challenge because they'll have to change their own way of doing things, too. Mr. Mueller is one of those who threw up the roadblock to Ms. Rowley's request for a search warrant that could have trapped a terrorist. FBI officials in Washington must react to memos and not stuff them in a drawer. The country will never be secure so long as higher-ups sit at their desks, collect their pay and ignore warnings from their agents in the field.

Mr. Ashcroft also announced last week that he would give the FBI additional latitude to monitor websites, libraries and religious institutions without first having to offer evidence of potential criminal activity. Further, the guidelines will make it easier for local agents to begin terrorism investigations without getting clearance from the top agency brass in Washington.

Loosening the guidelines for FBI surveillance also makes it easier for rogue agents to initiate campaigns of harassment or political spying. If the top echelon at FBI headquarters is awake and acting on warnings and requests from the field, there should not be a need to give agents latitude to act without clearance from Washington.

The Mueller-Ashcroft proposals are a start. Congress must provide oversight and direction to make certain these secret agencies act in the public's best interests. What's more, the accumulating evidence that the FBI's headquarters wasn't fully alert before Sept. 11 argues persuasively for a bipartisan commission to investigate all of the intelligence agencies and the state of the nation's anti-terror defenses.